In this course, we will trace the developments and functions of the essay as an important critical genre across a wide variety of British, North American and other Anglophone contexts. Our broad survey will include the essayistic work of 20th- and 21st-century writers (such as e.g. James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood and Kei Miller) as well as 'classic' postcolonial and more recent 'transcultural' interventions by Chinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie and Yaa Gyasi. Widely circulating essays by Zadie Smith, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Achille Mbembe, Arundhati Roy and Pankaj Mishra as well as "The 1619 Project" will be discussed to discern and understand some of the key cultural and political debates in which the contemporary essay intervenes. Our examinations will include testing the boundaries of the genre via newer forms such as the videographic essay and exploring the relationship between authors' literary writing and their essayistic work through 'writings on writing'. In our own critical writing, we will experiment with different registers and formats.
For the 2-course-module EAS-1854, this HS is to be combined with the Ü "Literary Reviews" (Shah).
Admission settings
The course is part of admission "Zeitgesteuerte Anmeldung: The Art of the Essay: Postcolonial Interventions and Transcultural Perspectives".
The following rules apply for the admission:
A defined number of seats will be assigned to these courses.
The seats in the affected courses have been assigned at 20.04.2022 on 18:00. Additional seats may be available via a wait list.
The enrolment is possible from 14.03.2022, 08:00 to 18.04.2022, 18:00.
